March 25, 2014

“Anchorman” Director Adam McKay Is Taking On the Financial Crisis. But What About His Lee Atwater Film?

Will Ferrell (left) and Adam McKay.Armando Brown/The Orange County Register/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Writer/director Adam McKay is signed on to helm a film adaptation of journalist Michael Lewis‘ book The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine for Paramount Pictures. The nonfiction best-seller examines the housing and credit bubble of the 2000s. “Michael Lewis has the amazing ability to take complex formulas and concepts and turn them into page-turners,” McKay said in a statement.

The 45-year-old director is best known for directing comedies such as Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and the Anchorman movies. The idea of him doing a housing bubble film might strike Ron Burgundy devotees as odd. But if you take more than just a quick glance at his career, it shouldn’t. “Adam McKay to Film ‘The Big Short,’ Which Makes More Sense Than You Think,” the Wire writes. Sure, his films have plenty of crude jokes and improvisational and (sometimes surreal) humor. But also he’s an intensely political person.

He’s a die-hard liberal and Democratic fundraiser. His comedy website Funny or Die has tried to help free an American jailed in the United Arab Emirates, and has worked with the Obama White House in attempting to educate people about the Affordable Care Act. McKay produced and co-wrote The Campaign, a 2012 political comedy, starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, that is harshly critical of Citizens United and the Koch Brothers (a Koch spokesman actually fired back at the film and its star). The Other Guys, which McKay directed and co-wrote, is a buddy cop movie that doubles as a critique of our financial system and capitalist excess. Even his crude, non-political comedy Step Brothers begins with a dumb-sounding quote from George W. Bush.

McKay is outspoken on all sorts of issues. “So long as there are hack politicians who want to say ‘three strikes, you’re out,’ and come up with these slogans that are not thoughtful, [this isn’t going to stop],” McKay has said, slamming the failures of the drug war and the US prison system.

If the culmination of all this turns out to be a housing and credit bubble movie, then that totally makes sense. Which brings us to another one of McKay’s as-yet unrealized projects: His Lee Atwater movie. The late Atwater was the rollicking Republican strategist (and bluesman) who worked for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and served as RNC chairman. He was infamous for essentially rewriting the book—or at least codifying the standards—on waging nasty, victorious political campaigns in the modern era. (Willie Horton, anyone?)

In 2010, McKay discussed the possibility of an Atwater project with MTV News, and mentioned that Edward Norton or Jim Carrey could be good picks to portray the GOP consultant. Here’s an excerpt:

But what draws me to the Lee Atwater story is the fact that he’s such a larger-than-life, massive, mythic American figure. He was a badass blues guitar player, and hilarious and charming, and had absolutely no moral center whatsoever. It’s a crazy story. I think it’s an opportunity for a great role for a big, powerhouse actor. There’s also no way you spend more than $10 million on that movie — probably we’re just getting $5 or $6 million. I like that too, which gives us a certain freedom. The final lynchpin was that we got Jesse Armstrong, who co-wrote In the Loop, which is one of my favorite movies. We’re getting a script written right now…Everything [Atwater] touched sort of changed the landscape of how leaders are elected in our country. And at the same time, there’s nothing preachy about our story. Lee Atwater is a great way to dig into how things have changed in a funny, disturbing way that’s not remotely preachy.

In June 2011, he went on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher and discussed the possible film, highlighting how Atwater was basically “the devil,” due to his dirty-campaign wizardry and charisma. This sounds like a great idea, and it would certainly fit into McKay’s recent demonstrated interest in more “mature” filmmaking. But who knows if or when we’d get to see the project come to life. McKay’s publicist tells me that Atwater is still “on the back burner,” and McKay obviously has his hands full at the moment.

For now, eager viewers will have to settle for The Big Short, and hope that it makes its way to the big screen soon—or they might have to settle for an unrelated Lee Atwater movie starring one-time Harry Potter Daniel Radcliffe.

Now check out the trailer for the 2008 documentary Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story:

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate